Bautista breaks Rea’s Portimao dominance in warm-up

Full World Superbike warm-up results from Portimao

Alvaro Bautista has replaced Jonathan Rea at the top of the timesheet for the first time this weekend at Portimao by leading Sunday warm-up as he looks to fightback from a frustrating opening World Superbike race.

The Aruba.it Racing Ducati rider made contact with team-mate Chaz Davies breaking into the first corner which forced the Spaniard off track meaning he dropped down the order to 17^th spot.

Despite a spirited fightback to fourth place by the chequered flag, Bautista will be desperate to reach the podium in today’s two races in order to keep his World Superbike title hopes alive after falling 93 points behind Rea in the standings.

With Bautista topping the 15-minute session with an early best lap of 1m 41.268s, Rea slotted into second place having demonstrated his ominous long run pace.

Toprak Razgatlioglu claimed third in warm-up for Puccetti Kawasaki ahead of Michael van der Mark who completed the podium in Race 1 for Pata Yamaha.

Loris Baz has ended warm-up in fifth place as he looks to recover from falling during the opener for Ten Kate Yamaha, with Kawasaki’s Leon Haslam edging out Yamaha’s Alex Lowes for sixth place.

Markus Reiterberger impressed with eighth place in warm-up for the factory BMW squad ahead of Davies, who claimed second place in Race 1 for Ducati, as Tom Sykes rounded out the top 10 for BMW.

That saw Michael Ruben Rinaldi just miss out for Barni Ducati but he kept ahead of Sandro Cortese (GRT Yamaha), Eugene Laverty (Team Goeleven Ducati) and Marco Melandri (GRT Yamaha).

Jordi Torres led fellow independent Kawasaki rider Leandro Mercado for 15^th, as Takumi Takahashi continues to head up the Honda charge at the back in 17^th.

World Superbike wildcard Sylvain Barrier slotted into 18^th place on the Brixx Ducati with Ryuichi Kiyonari and Alessandro Delbianco completing the timesheet.